The Role of Media in Building Patriotic Narratives
The Role of Media in Building Patriotic Narratives
Media plays a vital role in shaping people’s understanding and perception. During my childhood, I used to hear a patriotic song: "প্রথম বাংলাদেশ আমার শেষ বাংলাদেশ, জীবন বাংলাদেশ আমার, মরণ বাংলাদেশ." At that time, the BNP was in power. Broadcast media like TV and radio frequently played this song. Hearing it repeatedly created a sense of patriotism in me that subconsciously shaped my mind. The song seemed to evoke the spirit of the Independence War of 1971.
Later, during the Awami League regime, two songs—"যদি রাত পোহালে শোনা যেত বঙ্গবন্ধু মরে নাই" and "নোঙর তোল তোল, সময় যে হল হল"—were frequently broadcast. These songs generated the same patriotic emotions in me as the earlier one did. Through such songs, the Awami League used broadcast media to shape Bangabandhu as an inseparable part of the Independence War of 1971 in our collective consciousness.
Media captures our psychology in the name of patriotism, often influenced by the ruling power. It encodes selective or even counterfeit patriotic narratives, while we, as audiences, decode them based on our class, education, ideology, and belief system. Ultimately, whatever we see or hear is controlled by the media. It creates, recreates, and modifies narratives according to its own or political necessities. As decoders, we may trust, reject, or interpret these narratives differently, depending on our perspectives and mentalities.
In fact, the media is not neutral but biased. It does not follow an idealistic ideology; rather, it follows a complex ideology governed by the ruling class. Media operates under the influence of authority, delivering messages in the way that power dictates. Consequently, the sense of patriotism and the historical understanding of the 1971 Independence War shift with changes in government, as the media reconstructs national narratives to align with the ideology of those in power.